The phenomenon of Treaty Shopping and the International Investment Dispute Settlement

For more than one decade, Treaty Shopping is at the center of the discussion of the International Investment Dispute Settlement. Generally, treaty shopping is a practice which international investors (natural and legal persons) through various methods, in particular, nationality planning, corporate structuring or restructuring, and by transfer of claims deliberately are seeking to use or take more benefits of the more favorable advantages of the BITs which the home country probably conclude with the host or third countries. The arbitration courts are faced with this question that they should dismiss the disputes containing treaty shopping or not? And is nationality planning or changing the corporate nationality by investors which occur aiming at utilization of the treaties advantages would be “Legitimate Nationality Changing” or “Treaty Abuse”? The aim of this article is to consider and analyze the notion of treaty shopping, methods which treaty shopping will be occurred and the quality of determining treaty shopping, in particular, in line with the foreign control notion based on the jurisprudence of the arbitration courts and investor-State arbitrations, in particular, ICSID and the solution for decreasing its possible effects.